


Tamor's Children

by NatatBlue



Series: The New Unbreakables [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Military, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, F/M, M/M, Military, Plot, Politics, Power Dynamics, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-03-15 09:23:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3441890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NatatBlue/pseuds/NatatBlue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Suren, a master of the ancient Province of Tamor, searches for his future and his people's future. For three hundred years, Tamor has lain under the boots of her powerful neighbor, but her people refuse to forget their past and their glory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a section of the revised Unbreakables. This story is no longer part of the collected works of the Unbreakables, but should be able to work as a standalone story.
> 
> This story is written by both Kor and Nat.

Tamor’s Children

Chapter 1

 

 

 

 

3025 CE

The air was heavy with the warmth of spring and the salty moisture that rose from the sea. Almost two years in the First Province and Suren still found the smell of the sea foreign. He missed the crispness of the mountain air, the harshness of the high sun and the transparent blue of the mountain sky. He tipped his head back and looked up at the flat disc of the sun. Everything was different here. He pressed deeper into the large tree trunk, melting into its protective shade. The bark of the tree was pleasantly rough against his naked forearms, and the ground was cool and damp under his feet.

He looked around, watching the gathered people – the young and liberal of the Alliance. Naïve perhaps also, Suren thought bitterly. They were waving signs and chanting loudly. “Democracy now! Elections for all the people! Remember the Constitution!” 

Suren wished he could have their optimism, but he wasn’t from the wealth and easy life of Karsi where everyone had electricity twenty-four hours a day and holding a sign didn’t end in instant arrest. He was from the impoverished province of Tamor where optimism had been crushed long ago under the boots of the Alliance conquerors. 

Suren let out a long breath, shaking his head once more. No, he wasn’t going to allow resentment to engulf him. He was a citizen of the Alliance now. He was in their capital and attending their university; it was time to put aside the grievances of the past.  They were all here for the same reason. They all wanted a better Alliance. This was the future, all their futures. Tamor was never going to be The Kingdom of the Seven Peaks again. Crying and wailing over past independence and remembered greatness was futile. 

Suren looked at the demonstrators, students, mostly in jeans and brightly colored shirts. They were smiling and singing and holding hands. Miraculously the protests had grown beyond their hopes from the small group of radical students who had befriended him, enchanted by his foreignness, to a swelling mass.  University students always felt they could change the world, and the authorities had been patient. They didn’t see students milling around in the bright sunshine as a threat. If this had been Tamor, the response would have been different. 

“Are you seeing this, are you seeing this?” A voice full of excitement shouted into his ear, as a pair of strong hands grabbed him by the shoulders. Septimus was bouncing at Suren’s side in constant childlike excitement over everything. Only Septimus’s enthusiasm faded fast in the face of real opposition. Suren had seen Septimus’s quick explosions of temper when things failed to turn out his way.

“You are getting excited over nothing.” 

“Oh, again with that cautionary pessimism.” Septimus came to stand shoulder to shoulder with Suren, bumping him in an Alliance friendly shove.

Suren swallowed, forcing the rush of anger down. Suren was becoming used to the brashness of his Alliance friends, but sometimes it was still a struggle, especially when they casually took the position by his shoulder. His bond mate would stand at his shoulder someday. In Tamor no one dared to stand at a shinzlan’s shoulder without invitation. Even the idea of a shinzlan was incomprehensible here where his customs were dismissed as primitive and barbaric. Suren came from ancient stock, a Blessed master of Tamor, a shinzlan in his native tongue. They, with their bonded mates, had ruled Tamor for centuries.

“We’re going to bust the nobility’s balls,” Septimus said with ridiculous confidence.

The words snapped Suren out of his thoughts. He nearly growled at himself for succumbing to those thoughts. This was no time to look back into overblown legends and dated traditions. They had work to do. 

“You and what army?” Suren asked coolly, shifting, making sure their shoulders weren’t touching. He liked Septimus, even with his poorly controlled temper and constant belligerence. He was an honest and loyal friend. But that was Suren’s mate’s place.

“You like to rain on everybody’s parade, don’t you?” Septimus said, shoving Suren’s back with his shoulder. 

Suren had to bite back a rebuke. This was acceptable behavior for friends in the Alliance. He was the one who’d fled the formality and rigidness of Tamorian traditions. He could hardly be angry that his Alliance friends ignored unexplained protocol. 

“What are you thinking about?” Septimus asked. “What scenarios are going on in that big brain of yours?”

“I’m thinking that another five degrees of sea temperature and we’ll have trouble gathering twenty people for our protests, let alone the number that we need to keep this campaign going.”

“You put a lot of trust in people.”

“Look around, Septimus,” Suren barked, turning to look the man in the eye. “It’s mainly students who are probably here to distract themselves from their approaching exams. Once the partying season really gets going, how many of them do you think will bother to come?” He kept his voice low enough that the others wouldn’t hear him. “We are spreading ourselves too thin protesting against everything. We have no clear agenda and no real leader.”

“People are tired of being the nobility’s whipping boys. We want our lives back,” Septimus stated with passion.

“And that’s nice but do you really think that a handful of disorganized students protesting against the blocking of a candidate’s name for the presidency is going to achieve anything? How many of them even know why they are here? How many know what we want?” Suren jerked his head toward the loud masses of young people. “If we really want Cornelius’s name back on the candidates slate, we need to have thousands of protests all over the country. We need people ready to fight for what they want. How many do you think will stick around once the universities start to threaten them with exclusion from exams or with expulsion? You know that our university’s academic council is considering the measure. I’m sure others do too.”

“Then what? We should do nothing?” Septimus asked, sounding hurt.

Suren shook his head. “I’m just saying how things are. We need to realize change will not happen in a day or two. We are here to educate people. Only free people can have freedom. This”—Suren pointed at the gathering—“is an exercise in freedom. Don’t expect it to be anything more than that.”

Suren knew that in a way his words were directed at himself also. There was no point in hoping for the impossible. Not yet. But Tamor was patient. She knew how to wait. Suren found it odd how often these days he thought of Tamor. Two years ago he could hardly wait to run away from her, and now she was the rock that kept Suren from losing his mind.

His thoughts were cut short by a strange feeling, a yearning, a familiar shimmer of power he hadn’t felt since he’d left Tamor.  He searched the crowd for another with sandy hair and fair skin, all his senses on high alert. Even at home, Tamorian Blessed, the ancient ruling caste, were rare, destroyed and persecuted by the Alliance for centuries. Here he never expected to see one.

She was easy to spot, tall and beautiful, but her hair was black, not the fair colors of Tamor. She wasn’t Tamorian; he shouldn’t feel the power of his homeland. Her features screamed high nobility, maybe even First Families. Suren couldn’t imagine any reason for someone like her to be among the protesters. Maybe she was one of the bastard children of the nobility, those who had the misfortune to inherit only the looks.

“Who is she?” he asked, his voice dropping to a whisper. Septimus seemed to know everyone, and Suren hoped he would know her.

“That, my man, is Sabin Calatis,” Septimus said in a conspiratorial tone. “She’s a first year political science major at our university. Transferred from Scabo University last month.”

“You mean Calatis, as in the Calatis?” Suren asked, knowing full well there were no other Calatises. 

“Oh, yeah, and heiress to the title.”

“What she’s doing here?” Suren asked, unable to take his eyes off her.

Calatis was one of the most powerful families in the entire Alliance, a founding member of the First Families and the nine highest ranked houses of the First Province and the Alliance. Her family held the real power in the Alliance. The presence of the Calatis heiress at the protest was more than unexpected, even suspicious.     

“She’s at every protest you can find these days. Probably just to spite her daddy or something.” Septimus looked Suren over and added, “Man, if you know what’s good for you, keep away from her. She’s First Families.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Suren said, distracted, his thoughts on the beautiful woman. 

For Suren, it was more than just First Families and their control of wealth and power in the modern Alliance. Augustus Calatis, this woman’s direct ancestor was responsible for Tamor’s defeat. He’d led the campaign against Tamor. He was the one who flooded Tamor with the blood of slaughtered innocents, and he was the one who broke the last bone of Tamor’s resistance with lies and false promises. 

“It’s a bad idea, man, I’m telling you,” Septimus said, tugging at Suren’s arm.

Suren didn’t respond. He knew it was a bad idea. He was a Tamorian; a Tamorian Blessed. Her family had hunted his family for centuries. Her family enslaved his country. 

He wasn’t sure how he reached her. His mind didn’t register the people he maneuvered around, the pushing and sharp elbows.

“Hi,” he said, turning his head to look square into her caramel eyes.

“Hello,” she replied, slightly perplexed, her noble accent thick in that one word, like an insistent reminder of their differences. 

Suren knew he needed to turn around and run from her, yet he stuck his hand out. “I’m Suren. Suren of Tamor,” he added unnecessarily and maybe even stupidly. In his country it would indicate his status of Blessed. Only an idiot shared that knowledge. He had no idea why he said it except for the fact that this was a Blessed in front of him. Not born to Tamor and not even knowing what she was, yet still a Blessed strong enough to have called to Suren’s essence from dozens of feet away. 

A small smile played on her lips. “Hello, Suren of Tamor,” she responded with a firm handshake. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

 

*

 

Suren watched the faint line of dawn break outside the window, the sun scattering the morning fog in a muted gray of the city and the seaside. Home was different, golden sun against white mountain tops. Foolish thoughts. He was here now. Foolish, he repeated to himself. He’d let himself forget his place and be ensnared by a beautiful woman. No, ensnared wasn’t fair. They’d both wanted it.

Sabin Calatis slept, her dark hair cascading across the pillow, her face relaxed, dark lashes brushed her cheeks. She was a beautiful woman, vivacious, outspoken, not the public image of the heiress of the Calatis fortune and the power of one of the nine first ranked families. She had everything that the Alliance considered important: wealth, power, and beauty, but she was far more than those few traits. She’d captured Suren at her first glance, the tall and elegant maiden in the rabble of protesting students. Despite all her family’s power, she moved effortlessly among the radical student elements. She championed equal rights and opportunity for all, her beliefs true not just childish protests against her family which would evaporate when she came of age and held the power herself.

“In the Alliance, gawking at your sleeping date is considered creepy, Tamor boy,” Sabin whispered, her eyes still closed, a gentle smile playing on her lips as she stretched and turned toward Suren.

“Admiring the woman you shared your body with is creepy by Alliance standards, and we are the strange ones?” Suren teased back.

“Shared your body with?” Sabin snorted. “Are you supposed to marry a virgin too?” she asked, still in the same humorous tone, but the words hit Suren the wrong way.

He was Tamorian, a son of the poorest and most restive province in the United Alliance of Provinces. Tamor was different from all the others. She had been the last one conquered, her mountain warriors holding off a superior force for decades. She clung to her own religion, traditions, and language. Three hundred years in the yoke of the Alliance and Tamorians still called themselves of Tamor and not of the Alliance.

Sabin was right. He wasn’t supposed to be in bed with a passing fling. He, a blessed of Tamor, the son of one of the most ancient families in Tamor, had violated all the taboos. He’d fled his country for the modernity and promise of the Alliance capital. He’d violated ancient Shinzar law, his people’s religion, by denouncing his nature and engaging in the pleasure of the flesh without a bond.

“And what’s wrong with that?” he asked in a more defensive tone than he intended.

Sabin’s eyes narrowed, anger evident on her face. “What’s wrong with it?” she snapped. “If you’re allowed to fornicate left and right, you cannot ask a different behavior from your future wife just because she’s a woman.”

Suren physically fell back at her anger. In his culture the demands on the Blessed were the same no matter their gender. Fornicating, as she had so bluntly put it, was forbidden to both sexes. By tradition they were both bound now; he could escape no more than she could. Two years in the Alliance and he still felt like a complete stranger trying to navigate dark streets when it came to Alliance beliefs.

Suren reached for her hand, running his thumb over her knuckles and trying to recapture the ease and calm of the morning. “It’s your ways, not ours. In Tamor you would be revered, not considered weak and fragile. Women are the only vessel strong enough to contain and grow new life.”

“Revered to be bred like an animal,” she snarled, pushing his hand away.

“Whatever the wounds your people inflicted on you, do not spit them on me.” His power from his ancient blood, usually hidden, lashed out in anger at the sudden insult.

Sabin gasped and fell back, her eyes large and frightened. She had felt it. She’d felt Suren; even though, she probably was incapable of recognizing what she’d just witnessed. It took her only a fraction of a second to recover and school her features into a neutral mask.

“Don’t,” Suren said gently, his anger forgotten. “Don’t hide from me,” he whispered, pulling himself onto his hands and hovering just a fraction of an inch from her lips. “The fire that roars in you is incredible and it already is consuming my soul. I’m sorry,” he offered when she remained cold.

“You have nothing to apologize for.” Her voice was level; only her eyes betrayed the fact that Suren had somehow managed to sever the connection between them. His soul mourned the loss, even as his brain commanded him to leave. They could never be. He should view this as a gift from the spirits he never believed in and run away. But he didn’t. He couldn’t.

“You misunderstood me and it angered you. I apologize.”

She looked at him with those bright, intelligent eyes that had stolen his soul. “Your women are expected to stay home and breed. Hardly anything to misunderstand.”

“I’m expected to breed as well, as you so endearingly call having children. For me it’s not a hardship.”

“That’s because it’s not you who has to abandon your life to have children,” she pointed out in that level tone that made Suren bow in respect at her control over her temper.

“Children are the joy of life. I cannot give birth to one, but I would carve out my heart to protect my children and give them a good life. Each of the spouses sacrifices. Duty and sacrifice, that is Tamor,” Suren insisted in a soft voice. “I’m sorry that you live in a world that considers children a burden.”

 “I wasn’t exactly a burden for my parents.”

“I’m sorry,” Suren said, kissing her hand.

“Don’t be,” she said with a shake of her head. “And it’s not about that.” She fell silent, tilting her head to study the rising day behind the window. “My father loves me. I can’t say he doesn’t, but even he thinks I need a husband to be able to cope with my role as the future Lady Calatis. They are idiots,” she said with a grin. “My father thinks I’m going to marry Maximus of the house of Appia, the second son to Lord Appia. He’s fifteen and already thinks he knows better than me. I can’t decide whether to throttle him or to choke him on his own balls; that’s the only reason he’s still alive.”

Suren laughed at that, a rich and heartfelt laugh, but there was a small voice in his brain that roared in anger at the fact that someone dared go near what was his. The thought sobered him instantly. He was going into a possessive frenzy over a woman who was of the house of his sworn enemy and one day would head that house. She was of the same house that hunted his ancestors and murdered Tamor’s last prince before throwing Tamor into perpetual servitude with no hope for freedom. He, a sword and shield of Tamor, was falling for the future Lady Calatis. Maybe this was a desperate attempt to revenge all the Blessed blood her house had spilled. Tied to his for the eternal future, she would see and feel every dead child, every drop of blood. No, it would never come to be. She wasn’t a shinzella, the mate of a shinzlan. It was a love never meant to be, a mocking of the gods and traditions. He, the son of Tamor, would be lost forever.


	2. Chapter 2

**Tamor’s Children**

**Chapter 2**

 

 

 

They sat opposite from each other, both of them shocked and lost to their own thoughts. It had been an exhilarating three months. Suren had pushed every rational thought out of his mind and had lived for the moment. They had been inseparable. They’d become the symbol of the student protest movement—an impossible union—the heir to one of the greatest houses of the Alliance and the renegade son of the mountains. Their impossible union had proved not to be barren. 

Suren’s head swam and his brain refused to be rational when he thought about the small bundle of life that was determinedly growing inside Sabin, oblivious to any taboos.

“What now?” she asked, sounding painfully unsure. She was never unsure. 

He dug his fingers into his knees.  He wanted to say, now I take you to Tamor and you and the baby become forever bound to me, but that wasn’t how it worked. Sabin Calatis wife to Suren of Tamor was unthinkable, not only by Alliance standards, but by Tamor’s. Their own natures forbade it.  Suren had sensed the blessing in her the first day they met, muted and untrained, but still there. They were both the fire. They were both swords. They would never be able to function together. Sabin could never be his wife, even if the Calatis name wasn’t standing in their path. She would never be the shinzella, and forcing the submission expected of the shinzlan’s mate onto her would be a crime beyond imagination. 

She was still looking expectantly at him. Suren had no answer to her question, none that he wanted to give.  

“I can take the child,” Suren offered. “You can live your life as you’ve always planned, and I can take him with me to Tamor. You will not have to see us.”

The look she gave him would have made a lesser man flee. 

“You are a cockroach, Suren of Tamor,” she pronounced in a cold tone, standing up and looking ready to leave. 

”Wait!” Suren jumped to his feet. “I just thought—” he tried to explain. “Well, I assumed—“ He stopped again, still not sure how to say it. “You’ve always said you didn’t want to be a mother,” Suren murmured eventually. 

“Well, I didn’t, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to throw this baby away like a used handkerchief.” Her voice could have frozen the oceans. 

“He’ll have a good life with me,” Suren said, unable to hold her eyes. He would carve out his heart and use it to light his child’s path in life, but life was rarely good for a Tamorian. If the child inherited Sabin’s appearance, he would be a pariah in Tamor. 

“Really?” she said caustically. “And what’s that? The great education that you declined to come here to study? Or is it the great chances Tamorians get in in life? I’m not a naive fool.”

“Then what?” Suren spat, unable to control his anger. 

She looked away, shy and unsure, her eyes interested in something in the corner of the room. “You can stay with us,” she said in a soft voice. Her hand travelled to her belly as she shielded it in an unconscious gesture of expectant mothers. “I can offer you both the world; you just have to want it.” This time her eyes trained on Suren, her cheeks scarlet with embarrassment, but her eyes determined. 

Suren closed his eyes, and only his pride kept him from hanging his head down or running away. “I can’t.” He could barely hear his own voice. “You know there is no place for me in your life.”

“Let me worry about that,” she said, taking a stride to him and gathering his hands in her own.

Suren pulled away from her. “Your father would never allow it and you know it. He already has a husband for you,” Suren pointed out, looking everywhere but at her. He couldn’t tell her that even without her father Suren could never be with her.

“Marrying that man is never going to happen.” 

“Sabin, I’m a Tamorian; your father will never allow it,” he repeated, forcing himself to meet her eyes. 

“You don’t know that.” 

“Never,” Suren insisted. 

Even without Lord Calatis’s objection, Suren knew it could never happen, but he would have to tell her of the Blessing. It wasn’t only his secret and his safety. There were other shinzlans in his family, all bonded, and Suren couldn’t risk their and their bond mates’ safety. The laws might have changed, but the persecution hadn’t. Anonymity was the only safety.

“Sabin,” Suren started, unsure of what to say. 

He didn’t have to continue. The door to the room burst open and a tall, thin man with sparse hair gone to white at the temples entered the room. Suren had never met Lord Calatis, but he recognized the man. His aquiline nose and olive colored skin covering the sharp features were unmistakably First Families. His eyes and mouth were so much like Sabin’s that the resemblance was impossible to miss. Behind the man, two giants stood, obstructing the hallway completely. 

“Father.” Sabin spun around at the commotion, her voice sounding scandalized. 

“You two,” the man addressed his goons, “stay there.” He closed the door, turning to face them with the calm dignity of a man used to wielding enormous power. 

“What are you doing here?” 

Lord Calatis studied his daughter, his weight partially supported on his jeweled cane, an ancient symbol of the Calatis family and always in the family portraits that hung in the National Gallery. “You didn’t expect Doctor Horatius to keep such news from me, did you?”

Sabin’s cheeks exploded with scarlet; her eyes burned with anger. “He had no right to violate my confidence. I’ll have his head for this.”

“As you should,” Lord Calatis said in the same measured voice. “Don’t tolerate betrayal, my dear. However, we have other issues to discuss right now.”

“How did you know where to find me?” 

A small smile played on the man’s face, and he raised his eyebrow in a sign of amusement. 

“You knew about us,” Sabin murmured, her face darkening.

“My dear,” her father said, going to sit on the sofa without waiting for an invitation. He didn’t spare Suren a glance, as if Suren was invisible or inconsequential. “The fact that you refuse to have bodyguards doesn’t mean I stopped sending them after you.”

“You spied on me?” Indignation sparked her voice into a high pitch. 

“Made sure you were safe. Given the company you keep, I had to triple your guards.” He looked at Suren for the first time, and the disgust in his eyes told Suren everything he needed to know. “Let’s make things clear,” Lord Calatis said, addressing Suren this time. “I allowed my daughter her freedom as she seemed to crave it. I allowed her to change universities. I allowed her to run around with dubious elements and political radicals. I even closed my eyes when she became infatuated with you.” Every word highlighted Lord Calatis’s contempt for Suren. He dismissed the father of his future grandchild as no more worthy than a poor choice in kitchen curtains that could be swept out by a new decorator. “She needed it and she can be stubborn when she wants something.” There was pride in his voice as he spoke and his eyes travelled to Sabin, the disdain melting from his gaze and giving way to a prideful smile. “But this is where I draw the line.” The hard eyes were back on Suren.” You will disappear from her life and forget you ever met her.”

“She’s carrying my child,” Suren spat out, despite himself. 

“She’s carrying a Calatis child. You have nothing to do with her baby, her son according to the doctor.”

“Really?” Suren leered at the man. “Is his lordship fuzzy on the biology of child making?” He knew he’d gone well beyond sensible or sane. Tamorians suffered and in the past had died for such outbursts, but he didn’t care. He was angry, and anger made him forget to hide his Tamorian fire.

“Listen to me, you insolent pup. I will burn down that entire pile of rock you call a country if you dare even make a pip about the fact that it’s your child.”

“Father, how dare you?” Sabin came to stand between Suren and her father.  

“Oh, I dare,” the man said. “In fact you might ask me for matches to do it yourself when you find out what kind of creature you invited into your bed.”

Suren felt invisible tendrils of fear run up his spine. He had to exert all of his will and control to keep his breathing pattern unchanged. 

“Suren, son of Rhun,” Lord Calatis didn’t take his eyes off Suren. “Rhun of Tamor, son of Dylwin, Blessed of Tamor, both of them.”

Suren couldn’t move, the sharp gasp Sabin let out cut him to his soul. 

“Rumors have it you call yourself Suren of Tamor,” Lord Calatis went on. “Few know what that means.”

Sabin had turned around and was looking at Suren as if he were a stranger. 

“Ask him, my dear.”

Suren wanted to jump at him and throttle the man. 

“Ask him what that means.”

Suren tipped his head higher in a gesture of defiance, keeping his eyes locked on the most powerful lord in the Alliance. He knew this man could destroy him and his family and so many others, but he wasn’t going to cower before him. He was a sword of Tamor. He would not bow before this foreign conqueror. He had come to the Alliance looking for a brighter future, but he hadn’t forgotten his motherland. His pursuit was not only his own, but also his country’s. Tamor was forever locked within the Alliance, but it didn’t mean that her people couldn’t demand their rightful place as equals, not as servants perpetually sprawled under the conquerors’ boots. 

“What does that mean, Suren?” Sabin’s voice was low, gentle to a stranger’s ear, but Suren knew the power that was hiding behind the soft tone. 

Suren kept silent. He wasn’t going to admit to it. He still refused to shift his eyes from Lord Calatis, and the gesture angered him. His face darkened, changing from triumphant to hatred. Suren wrapped his power around his soul as a victor would a flag. He sneered in satisfaction as the man before him broke eye contact and lowered his gaze to the ground. The lord’s face contorted in rage when he realized the degree of capitulation in that simple gesture. 

“Suren.” Sabin’s voice was sharper now. “Tell me,” she demanded. “What is he talking about, and why did you not tell me about your heritage?”

Suren shifted his eyes to her. “I will not have this conversation in his presence,” he spat, jerking his head toward her father. 

“You—” Lord Calatis started, but cutting words from his daughter put an end to any objection.

“Quiet, Father,” she commanded. The strength of the order hit even Suren, forcing him to brace himself in order not to take a step back.  

Lord Calatis looked shocked at the force behind her words, yet he obeyed with no protest. Sabin’s power was burning brighter than Suren had ever seen it, and judging from her father’s reaction, it was more than anything he’d seen. Motherhood was said to feed a female shinzlan’s power. Some also claimed that a shinzlan child increased an expectant mother’s strength tenfold. Suren was far from believing such nonsense, but for some reason the idea sent shivers down his spine. The thought of leaving a child behind was unbearable; the thought of leaving a Blessed son behind was an agony beyond words.     
Sabin seemed to consider her next words before she spoke. “Suren and I will take a walk, and your thugs will keep their distance.”     
“I will allow you to have this one talk with him,” her father said, his voice and manner again reflecting the power of his title and his family. “But make no mistake, my dear, this little adventure of yours is over.”

“It’s over when I say it is.” 

“Not this time.” Lord Calatis refused to cede more ground. “I will stop at nothing, Sabin, I warn you.”

“If you dare do anything to him, Father, I swear I will go with Suren to Tamor and you will never see me again,” she hurled the words, cheeks bursting with new sparks of scarlet. 

“He’s smarter than that,” Lord Calatis said with a cruel smile. “He knows what a war with me will mean to his people. He will hand you back to me with his own hands.”

Suren hated it, but he knew the truth behind those words. He would have to force Sabin back. He couldn’t allow the First Families of the Alliance to enact revenge on his people for a single youthful affair, for a single child. Tamor wouldn’t survive another purge. He was a Blessed. He must think of all his people, no matter how painful.

 “You are a mother now,” Lord Calatis went on. “You will want to protect your child, not endanger him. And you know that the Calatis name is his best protection, his best chance.”

His voice was soft, almost nauseatingly sweet and Suren felt rage and despair battle within him. He was going to lose his child, his son. Worse he agreed with this man. The Calatis name was the best protection for the child. A child of the Calatis family would be an outcast in Tamor. A child of a Tamorian would be taunted and tormented in the Alliance. Only the Calatis name could offer him the protection and escape from the taint of being the fruit of a forbidden love. 

Sabin knew that too. Her eyes darted to the floor for a short second before she raised them to meet her father’s. “I need to talk to Suren now. We will discuss things later.”

Lord Calatis watched her for a long minute before nodding once. “Talk to him.” But remember to the world this child must be a Calatis. I want him gone from your life and erased from your past. The rest is up to you.”

Suren watched Lord Calatis walk away as emotions battled inside him. This man represented everything Suren hated, and he was going to give his child to this man. His child was going to be the son of Calatis, not the son of Suren.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Sabin’s voice interrupted his thoughts.

“Tell you what?” Suren asked, irritated, regretting the sharpness of his tone. Hot tempers ran in their family like a curse that passed from one generation to another. 

Sabin shoved Suren, an unexpected and out of character reaction. She was usually cool and collected, far from Suren’s own explosive nature Sabin’s caramel eyes burnt with dangerous fires of undisguised distrust and accusation. But perhaps worse was the impotent fury Suren read in them. 

“What should I have told you?” he asked in a soft tone, turning his gaze away from her burning eyes. “That my mother prostrates herself to her husband and master? Or that my father rules the household absolutely?” Suren trained his eyes back on hers and captured the look of horror that passed over her face.

“I wouldn’t have judged you for it,” she said, schooling her features to hide her shock. “You know the family I come from; you didn’t judge me based on that. It’s not your fault,” she added. 

“No, no, no,” he shouted, slapping the heel of his hand against the wall. “That is exactly why I didn’t tell you. Because I knew you wouldn’t be able to look beyond the hatred that had been infused into you. My father isn’t some kind of monster, neither is my grandfather and hundreds like him who were hunted down and exterminated.”

“How can you defend that?” Sabin asked, her voice weak with shock. 

“No, you should tell me how you can defend those who drove my people out of their homes, killed and tortured them because they couldn’t understand them, because they feared them. The Blessed were the defenders of Tamor. Shinzar was the rock that supported them and bound them, and your people destroyed it in a bid to destroy Tamor.” Suren’s voice rose with anger and desperation. “Please listen to me,” Suren softened his voice as he saw anger rising in her eyes as well. He didn’t want to fight Sabin; he couldn’t afford to fight her. She was maybe his only ally in this impossible situation. “For the sake of our child you need to have an open mind.” He reached for her hand, but she jerked it away.  

“Don’t try to use my son as a bargaining chip,” she snapped the “my” in her words cutting at Suren’s very soul. 

“I thought you were different,” he said with pain in his voice. He felt sick to his stomach thinking about his son abandoned among these strangers with no one willing to understand him.

“You fight inequality and injustice, you oppose the nobility’s arbitrary rule and you now look me in the eye and tell me that your Blessed are wonderful? Don’t you hear the hypocrisy in your words?” 

Suren shook his head, trying to fight off his rising fury. He was better than inarticulate rage over a foreigner’s inability to understand them. Master Iltyd had taught him better. He couldn’t allow his anger to get to him. He was going to be a father, and his duty was to provide for his child. 

“I’m begging you to hear me out, to really listen to me. Whether you want it or not, the child might be Blessed. He will need you to be his guide as I won’t be around,” Suren pleaded. 

“My son will not be like that,” Sabin cut him off angrily. “He will not enslave his people and beat his wife.”

For his child Suren would give up everything. Without a thought to his pride or the fury at his own impotence, he went to his knees. “To protect my son I will crawl to you and even your father, Sabin. Everything inside me demands retribution against those who oppose me, but I will prostrate myself to you to protect my child.”

Sabin froze for a moment, shocked at Suren’s bowed head and bent knee.  “Get up, get up.” She  pulled at Suren’s arms. “I never asked you to kneel and beg. I don’t want that.”

“Sabin, look at me,” Suren demanded, still on his knees. “I am Suren of Tamor. Yes that means I am a Blessed of Tamor.”

Sabin took a step back, shaking her head in disbelief. “No, you aren’t!” she said, sounding numb. “You are not that!”

“I am, Sabin. I am Blessed and I am a master, a shinzlan. At least I will be when I bond. One day I will bond and have someone who stands at my shoulder and kneels at my feet, defending all that is ours,” Suren said, sitting back onto his haunches and looking at Sabin. “But now I’m at your feet, begging to be the shield to our child. My family births Blessed. The child you are carrying has every chance to be one.”

“No,” Sabin repeated, closing her eyes. 

“Please, listen to me. He will have no one but you in your world. Whatever your beliefs, your indoctrination, for our son’s sake you need to look past them. I hope and beg whatever spirits are willing to listen that the child will not be Blessed, but if he is, you need to be sighted. Your world is brutal to the Blessed. Please don’t allow them to cut his very soul out of him.”

“You are asking me to raise my child as a tyrant in the teachings of our enemy. Every day sons and daughters of the Alliance die to hold back the tyranny of United Kalmacia.” 

“No,” Suren leaped to his feet. “Do not compare us to that filth!” That has always been the Alliance lie, Tamor, compared to their mortal enemy. The Seven Kingdoms of Tamor had fought Kalmacian evil since the country’s birth. Kalmacia knew nothing of the gift of surrender and the duty of mastery. “Sabin. Please.” Suren softened his voice once more. “Just open your mind and allow me to explain. Please allow me to give this one thing to our son—a mother who will understand him.”

Sabin closed her eyes, her face in turmoil before she opened her eyes and gave a determined nod. “I’m listening.”

“Thank you,” Suren said, bending his head and gently kissing her hand. “The Blessed are the essence of Tamor. I will show you our world beyond the lies of the Alliance. All I’m asking is that you listen to me with an open mind.”

Sabin gave one short nod, as Suren came to his feet. This was his one chance to protect his child. He must make her see.

#

The maternity ward of the Seventh Province Memorial Hospital was a barren and joyless place. Suren looked around at the nearly empty building, and he couldn’t help but compare it to the Tingrit Maternity Hospital where his brother’s daughter had been born. Despite the peeling paint and well worn furniture in the hallway, Tingrit Maternity Hospital was a vibrant place, filled with joy. He remembered his entire family standing at the windows to the maternity ward, stealing looks into the hallway and to the other families waiting impatiently for the good news. He remembered the cries of joy when a brilliantly smiling father appeared at the window and offered his family and friends the first glimpse of his baby. Suren remembered how his own family had exploded with cries and congratulations as his brother called out for them to look at his daughter. Here, the place felt sterile, almost dead, instead of the cradle of life. There were no families waiting outside, just a nervous, lone man here or there pacing the corridors. 

Suren hung his head down and pressed the sunglasses firmer against the bridge of his nose as he walked to the front desk. He murmured the name Sabin had given him, and the nurse jumped up, waving to a colleague to come and collect him. 

“Both mother and child are doing well, sir,” the nurse said with a bright smile as she motioned for Suren to follow her. 

Suren wondered if she would be as friendly with him if the natural color of his hair wasn’t hidden under black dye and his green eyes weren’t shielded by sunglasses. Even in the Seventh Province, Sabin Calatis was as close to a princess as the Alliance had and people hated seeing a Tamorian sheep lover around their princess. 

Sabin had moved to the Seventh Province for the duration of her pregnancy, and she somehow had twisted her father’s arm to get him to grant permission for Suren to remain by her side during her pregnancy and delivery. To their friends, Suren and Sabin had a falling out, and Sabin had transferred to a university in the Seventh Province while Suren moved back to Tamor. But it was a lie to eliminate any suspicion of his paternity. The understanding was that Suren would disappear once the child was born. 

Suren knew that it probably would have been easier not to see the child; it would have been wiser for him to have left the day he found out she was pregnant. But Suren couldn’t force himself to walk away without seeing his son at least once. So he was here to see his son for the first and the last time. He followed the nurse to Sabin’s room. His pace was unsteady. Part of him demanded he run to his son, to see and greet him and introduce him to the world as soon as possible. The other part wished to drag time into infinity, as the moment he met his son would also be the moment of their parting. 

Sabin looked tired. 

“You’re late,” she reprimanded him with no real heat behind her words, her full lips stretching into a weak smile. 

“I came as soon as you told me you were in labor,” Suren tried to defend himself. 

“The little fellow was in a hurry.” Sabin let out a chuckle, elevating the baby’s head slightly. “Look baby, that’s your daddy. Say hi to him.”

“Welcome to the world, my son,” Suren’s voice was too tight as he knelt down by the bed before the mother of his child and his son. “Thank you, my mistress.” He kissed Sabin’s hand, bowing his head to her.

“And I thought the First Families where prone to protocol, but you, the Blessed, really take the cake.” Sabin tried to sound light, but Suren could hear the strain in her voice. 

She was hurting; she was hurting for their son who would grow up fatherless, torn from half of his essence. She was hurting for her child who must be blind to half his heritage or risk facing torment for the blood that flowed in his veins. 

Suren didn’t answer, he came to his feet and reached for his son. The baby was clutching at Sabin’s hospital gown with one hand. The other one was rammed into his mouth, and he sucked on it greedily. The baby gurgled angrily as Suren tried to take him away. Sabin let out a short laugh.

“You should have heard him when he was born. He was screaming so loud that the whole world heard of his birth,” she said, her voice going softer, her finger gently caressing the delicate cheek.

Suren took the boy into his arms and the little one protested at being manhandled and separated from his mother. Suren couldn’t help but chuckle at the child’s anger. His baby’s eyes opened, fuzzy and unfocused, but still captivating, demanding, commanding. Power bled through those unfocused eyes. A power fiercer than anything that tiny should have been able to contain. These were the eyes of his family—the generals, the bonded masters and later faithful servants to the princes of Tamor. This boy, who would grow up as Calatis, would have the power of Tamor’s legendary generals. The thought was fresh in his mind when the look his son gave him penetrated his soul and touched his essence. 

“He’s a Blessed, isn’t he?” Her voice trembled at the question. 

“You felt it?” Suren felt the child’s wisps of power brushing against his own. 

Sabin threw her head against the pillows, her face sunken and drained of all energy. 

“I don’t know.” She turned her head away, as if trying to avoid the reality that she couldn’t understand. “So, is he?” she asked, turning back toward Suren.

“Yes,” Suren murmured, his eyes still captivated by his boy. Tears ran down his cheeks as he allowed their essences to mingle, as if trying to memorize the feel of their son.

“Eliot,” Sabin whispered. “His name is Eliot Sanders and he is going to do great things. He is going to bring war onto those holding our people hostage to their hate.” 

Eliot Sanders was an ancient name, nearly forgotten in its native Second Province. According to the folklore of the Second Province, Eliot Sanders was the name of the nation’s founding father; he’d waged war against the gods who held his people in servitude. He’d brought his people over the uncharted seas to what was today territory of the Second Province.

Suren brought his son to his chest, placing a tentative kiss to his forehead. He couldn’t give his son a Tamorian name, and Eliot Sanders was a worthy name. 

“Grow up strong and be worthy, my son,” he murmured the ancient blessing in his native Tamorian. He turned around toward where he knew their mountains were, invisible behind the unending horizon. He raised the small body toward the sun, his hands shaking and voice trembling as he realized these were his last seconds with his son. 

“I’ll take care of our son.” Sabin clutched at his hand. Her eyes were swimming in tears, but she refused to let them fall. “I promise you, he will be the champion of your people, of all our people. The protector of all those who are not strong enough to protect themselves.”

“He will be Calatis and know nothing of the pain of the Tamorian people,” Suren said bitterly.

“Suren,” Sabin insisted, her eyes burning with determination. “I promise to you he will not be my father. He will be like Aelius Calatis who brought freedom to the First Province; he will be like the great generals of your family. He will finish what my ancestors started.” She breathed fire now. “This is war, Suren, and we are going to win. No more childish protests, no more naïve demands in the streets. I know what I have to do.”

Suren looked at her. She was so young, not even twenty yet, but her strength was formidable. She believed in her words and she would to her dying breath fight to see them come true. At least that was a consolation. His son was shielded by the most formidable woman Suren had ever met. 

He bent down to kiss her brow. He placed little Eliot on his mother’s chest, and with one last kiss to his head covered with the finest hair, he walked out of the room. The world was staying behind him and he was walking into a desert. He jammed his hands into his pockets, his left hand forming a fist around his train ticket to Tamor. The Alliance had won once more. He was leaving his woman and his Blessed son behind, a tribute to Alliance greed. He was a sword of Tamor, the defender of the country, but he couldn’t find the strength to defend his own. He wanted to hide in the deepest pit in his mountains and await death’s claim.


	3. Chapter 3

**Tamor’s Children**

**Chapter 3**

 

The train slowed as it entered the lower range of the mountains. They were still in the Fourth Province, but these mountains were the foothills of Tamor ’ s great peaks. Suren turned his head to look at the distant outline of the peaks that were gradually becoming more visible. He was in a strange state of half reality. His mind kept falling back into a dreamlike state and coming awake with a start, leaving Suren unsure whether he was dreaming or awake. He was glad for it. He was glad for the overall numbness, the separation of his self from lucid and brutal thoughts.

The train slowed down further, whistling loudly before plunging into the tunnel that marked the division between the Fourth Province and Tamor. Suren’s mind went black once more. He startled awake as sunlight flooded the small compartment. The train was crossing a narrow trestle, appearing briefly to float suspended by nothing but air. Hamzar peak stood proudly on their right as the train made its way rapidly over one of the many cliffs of the Kiriz Mountains. Suren instinctively pressed harder against the cold glass of the window, as if trying to get closer to the snow covered caps of Hamzar, one of the sacred peaks that had guarded Tamor for millennia. This was Tamor; this was his home, his people ’ s home. 

Suren gazed at the beautiful and familiar scenery. Emotions that had been locked away flooded his mind. He saw the lush green valleys turn scarlet from the spilled blood. The mountains echoed with the cries and prayers of the innocent fleeing an enraged and bloodthirsty enemy bent on destroying everything in its path. Thousands of women with their babies locked in their arms threw themselves down the crags and the mountains that had protected Tamor for centuries, painting the bleak boulders below in crimson. An entire country burned, old and young alike. The guilty and the innocent, all had perished. No one was spared. The enemy,blinded by anger and destroyed all.. Suren had tried to forgive. He’d tried to mute his anger and hatred of the Alliance, but the unavenged blood of his forefathers was still calling to him. And now his son’s cries were mixed with the call of the innocent. Suren was raging, his blood boiling.   


“Help an old man to the exit.” The voice startled Suren. He looked at the old man whose boney fingers dug into Suren’s shoulder. “I’m not young anymore. This bag is too heavy for one like me,” the old man croaked in a raspy voice as if the vocal chords had been frozen by a long silence. He was old, his face wrinkled, his eyes misted with age, but the strength of his fingers digging into Suren’s shoulder told Suren that the man was still far from the helplessness he claimed. 

Suren stood up and collected the man’s bag. He was a son of Tamor, he couldn’t ignore the man’s request. The bag was light enough for a child to carry it with ease. 

“You didn’t need my help,” Suren said as they left the small compartment and walked through the narrow corridor to the door. He was irritated at the intrusion, but he bit back his sharp words. This was Tamor; elders were respected.

“No,” the man admitted easily. “And my stop isn’t for another hour.”

Suren looked at the man, letting his eyes show the questions that wanted to burst from his lips. 

“That man sitting across from you is in an Alliance uniform. He is not a native of Tamor.”

“I noticed that,” Suren grunted, still in no mood to have genteel social conversations and idle chatter. 

“Your power was becoming so loud, even one blind like me could feel it flowing off of you. That one had noticed as well. He couldn’t possibly understand what he was feeling, but that never stops them from harassing us.”

Suren let his head fall in shame. He had let his fire run rampant, like an untrained child. 

“You should be more careful, my son,” the man said, bowing down before Suren.

“Don’t.” Suren stopped the man before he could go to his knees. “I don’t deserve it.”

“You are a master, son. You are young and you are hurt, but you are a master. The first master I’ve seen in a long time. It gives me joy because I know Tamor is soon to rise once more.”

Suren said nothing, just shook his head, keeping his eyes on the mountains filling the train windows in all directions. 

“For fifty years after the Great Slaughter no Blessed was born to Tamor, and for two centuries more only a handful were born. Punishment for our sins. Most men went their entire lives without seeing one. Even now they are few, but I have seen you—the third in my lifetime—and you are still young. When the Blessed rise, Tamor will rise.”

Suren didn’t feel like pointing out that the purge had decimated the population of Tamor and nearly eradicated the Blessed. Simple genetics had kept their population down. 

“The swords of Tamor, the protectors of our people, are rising.”

Suren turned away from the man and faced the windows and the rapidly changing scenery. He couldn’t even protect his son. He couldn’t protect Tamor. But he wasn’t going to crush this man’s hope. Let him believe.

“I know, my son. The time of the prince will soon come. You will see. Do not despair.” The man squeezed Suren’s shoulder before picking up his bag and going into another compartment for the remaining part of his journey. 

#

 

 

 

 

Suren walked the narrow path up the hill to his parents’ house. He ’ d traveled this road countless times, yet this time it felt nearly impossible to conquer. The train had left him in the center of Tingrit, the capital of Tamor, but his parents lived outside of the city on a scarcely populated hillside away from prying eyes. The Blessed stayed away from inquisitive neighbors who might be tempted by fear or promised coins to answer unwanted questions from the security services. 

Their house appeared from behind the bushes. It looked just like Suren remembered it from his childhood: small with blue shutters thrown open to the sun and potted herbs on the porch. He hadn’t lived here since he was twelve, but he knew the kitchen would smell of vanilla and rising bread and that the sofa would still be a faded blue in the room that doubled as the living room and his parents’ bedroom. Someone was waiting for him on the porch, unmoving, his weight on the white porch railing. 

Master Iltyd. He lifted his hand and nodded once. As always calmness enveloped him and seemed to seep toward Suren; controlling, shaping, organizing the torment in his brain, In ancient times the bond betweenstudent and guardian master was stronger than the one between child and parent. Suren had been bound over to Iltyd at twelve, an ancient custom that struggled to survive in the modern world. Once there had been a master in every village ready to guide a Blessed child. Now they were rare, and the custom of youthful binding was tracked and discouraged, using legislation meant to prevent pedophilia or child labor as a pretense. Iltyd had posed as Suren’s uncle to avoid detection and prosecution.He had reined in Suren’s temper, tempered his fire, but he had also understood Suren ’ s need to explore the world. He hadn’t approved, but he’d nodded in his quiet way and allowed Suren to leave Tamor. Suren had wanted to avoid the man’s uncompromising eyes and demands to dissect his own soul. Master Iltyd had warned Suren, and he had not listened.

He took a deep breath and forced his feet to cover the remaining distance. He moved like an automaton—one foot before the other, no input from his mind needed. He crumbled to his knees when he reached Iltyd. Suren was aware that somewhere in the background hovered his mother and father, but he had no more strength leftto greet them. 

“My son,” the words tore out of his chest as he knelt before Master Iltyd. Suren pressed his head to the master ’ s knees, sobs shaking his frame. “They took my son, my Blessed son.”

The hand was warm and unwavering on his head, grounding Suren, weaving the scattered strands of his soul back into a single tapestry. “Shinzlan?”

Suren nodded, unable to utter any words.

“The spirits have had mercy on the child,” Master Iltyd uttered, breathing a sigh of relief. “They have not punished the son for the sins of the father.”

Suren wanted to scream that spirits had nothing to do with it. It was common biology. His family birthed masters, almost never shinzella. But he had no strength. He wanted to scream that if the spirits were real, Suren would have declared war on them for their mindless cruelty; only Suren knew he ’ d brought this upon himself with his own arrogance.  

“Hush, boy.” His master’s hands were gentle, but insistent as they tugged him up. “Come into the house.”

“This isn’t fair,” Suren complained as he was guided to his feet.

“Take your punishment with dignity, my boy. You are Blessed. You have turned away from Tamor, and she has taken her due. I warned you. You refused to listen.”

“It’s not fair,” Suren cried out once more. “I made a mistake, I know that! But my son! I will never see my son.” The pain was too much to bea,r and he staggered, leaning into Master Iltyd. “They have my son,” he pleaded with his master before looking at his father. “They took my son,” he repeated with desperation as if begging them to do something about it.

His father murmured something to his mother. Only than Suren realized how much his pain was hurting her. Her face contorted with agony before she lowered her eyes and disappeared into the house. 

“I’m sorry,” Suren muttered, turning toward his father.

“It’s all right, I shouldn’t have allowed her to accompany me outside. I knew you would be hurting.” His father pulled him into an embrace, and Suren melted into his father ’ s strength. 

“They took my son, Father,” Suren repeated, as if hoping someone would tell him it wasn’t true. “My boy,” he murmured, bursting back into sobs as the ghost feeling of his son’s tiny body filled his arms. 

“Enough,” Master Iltyd commanded, putting his hand on Suren’s shoulder. “You will live through this.”

Suren shook his head. “I can’t. There is nothing for me.”

“You are a sword of Tamor.” Master’s voice was sharp. “You will survive. You will take this as a just punishment and learn from it. You will bond and have other children.”

“No.” Suren jerked away from his father and from his master’s hand. “No,” he repeated. “How am I to bond after this? How do I have other children when I couldn’t protect this one?”

“You owe children to Tamor.” Master’s fingers were punishing as he grabbed Suren by his chin.

Suren let out a cry of a wounded animal ready to unleash himself, hoping to find solace in violence and the physical retribution that would follow such an outburst. 

“Stop, boy.” The voice was soft, but the command impossible to disobey. “You will not win. Not when you are broken to pieces. If you need beaten so you can cope with this pain, I can do it without damaging you further. Do you need beaten, boy?”

Suren nodded. Yes, he wanted the cleansing of physical pain. He wanted the agony of his body to mirror the agony in his soul. He wanted marks that would remind him what he ’ d lost today. 

“I want it to scar, Master,” he said coming down to his knees before Iltyd and pulling his shirt off.

 

#

 

Suren sprawled on the sofa, half drugged from the endorphins coursing through his blood. He knew someone had tendend his wounds; he could feel the thick antipitic paste and the stickiness of tape as he shited his shoulders. The pain in his soul still throbbed only muted and dulled by Iltyd ’ s strap. 

“I have picked your bond mate,” Master Iltyd said softly.

Suren made a noise of protest, but couldn’t force himself to say more. He didn’t want to think about bonding.

“Do not fight it, Suren,” Master warned. “ I will win. I allowed too much before. Your paisn is also my burden.  I will grant you time to heal. She’s still too young and even if she wasn’t, you are not fit to bond — my error again. But you will bond. She is perfect for you--a warrior shinzella for a warrior shinzlan.”

Master’s fingers felt good in his hair. Suren was drifting to sleep. He didn’t want to bond. He didn’t want to heal. He wanted to feel this pain his entire life. It was the only thing left to him of his son. 

“Grief, but not despair, boy. Our moutains still stand proud; our sun still shines.”

Suren felt the moisture on his cheeks and heard his choked sobs only at Iltyd’s words. “I left my son, a Blessed of Tamor in the hands of the enemy,” Suren said numbly. “He is lost to me and Tamor.”

“Who knows?  Maybe this is not the end. Maybe this in fact is the beginning.”

“He ’ s going to be brought up as the hated Calatis. The dogs, who have hunted my blood for centuries, have him.” Suren snarled, lifting his head to look at Master Iltyd.

“Don’t you snap at me, boy.” The man’s voice was a crack of a whip. “I did not force you into the bed of the Calatis maiden.”

Suren dropped his eyes, ashamed of the simple truth. He knew who Sabin was, yet he hadn’t cared. “She was different, not like her family. She has the strength of a Blessed. She will guard my son,” he said, hanging to that last hope with his words.

“So you’ve told me,” Master said, referring to the fierce argument they had months ago when he had found out about Suren’s affair. 

Suren waited for rebuke that never came. 

“The prophecy says the prince will rise again,” Master Iltyd spoke softly, his fingers in Suren’s hair once more. “It also speaks of a green-eyed general lost to Tamor who will train the prince. Your family has always been the home of the green-eyed generals of the prince, Suren. Maybe this was written in the stars that shine down upon our mountains.” He forced Suren’s eyes to meet his. “Maybe today as you mourn your loss, it’s a sacrifice to ensure Tamor’s future.”

Suren held Master’s eyes for several seconds before closing his own and shaking his head. It was a sacrifice to atone for his sins. His boy was lost to him, and no silly prophecy could take that pain away from his soul.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

Tamor’s Children

Chapter 4

 

 

 

 

 

Eliot Sanders stifled a grunt as he landed on a rock, his foot twisting. His hip screamed with the pain of stretched muscles. They’d done this hundreds of times on missions and in training, yet he’d managed to make a disaster of it. No one could predict every rock and stick between them and their landing ground. The knowledge didn’t stop Eliot from berating his own incompetence.  

He rolled to his left to make room for the rest of his team to slide down the rope. Above Eliot, the helicopter blades worked furiously as the metallic bird hung in the air for the drop off. 

Eliot breathed through the sharp pain radiating from his injured leg. He kept his focus on the bright dots of the stars scattered across the night sky, trying to distract himself. He was supposed to be unstoppable, and he’d just managed to cripple himself one minute into their mission. Politicians and poets wrote accolades to the bravery and glory of the Alliance Power Troops, the Unbreakables in the vernacular, and he couldn’t even walk without wincing. 

The helicopter started to gain altitude as the men listened to the sound of the rotors fading into the distance. Only five men and one with a bum leg, Eliot thought grimly. They were alone until their rendezvous at the extraction point—ten days in this prime garden spot of the world.

“Sir, are you injured?” Gaius, Eliot’s second extended a hand when Eliot failed to hop onto his feet. 

 Eliot ignored the offered hand. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to stand on his injured leg. Impossible wasn’t in his vocabulary. He’d had that beat into him enough. Nobility had its privileges. Eliot wasn’t a naive buffoon. He knew the power of his family name, but the privileges had stopped when he’d put on the blue beret and gone to war. 

“I’m fine,” Eliot let out through clenched teeth forcing himself to put weight on his injured leg. 

He’d chosen this. He’d wanted it ever since he’d run from the comfort of his family title, the future Lord Calatis, gifted by birth with wealth and power. He’d horrified his mother and grandfather by going to the military academy and accepting an invitation to the Unbreakables the pinnacle of the Alliance military prowess. There were no cushy and protected jobs in the Unbreakables. Everyone carried his own weight. A noble name was no protection. Now he needed to get his men out of this open field before they became grim statistics on a desk of a general with a cozy job in the capital.

.

 “Octavius, help the Lieutenant,” Gaius ordered, trying to take Eliot’s gear off his shoulders.

“I’ve got it.” Eliot jerked his gear back from Gaius and pushed at Octavius. “I can walk,” he snapped, determined to do exactly that. 

He wasn’t going to show weakness. Head of the Primi for over six months, he didn’t have to prove anything to anyone, but old habits died hard. When he’d first joined the troops, Eliot, as an academy graduate, was mercifully spared the embarrassment of being put with the cubs, the internal training contubernium of the Unbreakables. At least he’d thought it was a mercy. In reality it had meant that he didn’t have the luxury of learning to be an Unbreakable, but had to hit the ground running. The first centurion had jerked the newly minted lieutenant stripes from his shoulder and shoved him into the third contubernium of the First Centuria. 

Eliot’s mind flashed to those first few weeks in the Unbreakabes. He’d been run until he’d thrown up every drop of food and water in his stomach and then beat on in a demonstration of his inadequacies in hand-to-hand combat. He’d kept getting up, and he kept being knocked on his ass, his head shoved into the hot dust of their training ground. Every day had ended with Eliot so bruised and battered that he could hardly walk to his barracks. Two weeks in, his sparring partner had grinned and spat into the dirt after adding another round of fresh bruises on Eliot’s body.

“You’re going to make me lose this, oh noble one.”

Eliot had been wiping his own blood off his face with a sleeve and at first the words didn’t register. It was only when he was walking the perimeter on an endless round of guard duty and overheard three of his fellow soldiers sniggering about bashing the noble ass again and saw bills changing hands that he realized they were betting on him fleeing back to his grandfather. 

“I’ll bet one hundred to stay.”

“You’re crazy.” Articus’s grin had been predatory when he’d folded Eliot’s money and put it in his pocket. It had been sweet revenge when the centuria had paid up a month later. The head of the First Contubernium had smiled sheepishly as he shoved the money in Eliot’s pocket.

“Fair is fair. You won. So what are you doing with your prize?”

“Quenching everybody’s thirst until the money runs out.” Eliot had shoved the money back into Articus’s hand and sauntered off. 

“Sir.” Gaius’s voice jolted Eliot out of his thoughts. “This mission sucks enough without me having to clobber you over the head. Let’s not do this.” 

Eliot glared at Gaius who stood almost a head shorter than him. Not that the height difference would stop Gaius. The man had years of experience. He knew every dirty trick on the face of the earth for taking a man down. 

Gaius had been one of the last holdouts of those disapproving Eliot’s acceptance to the Unbreakables. He’d been, at any rate until couple of weeks ago. 

“I thought you’d be happy for the opportunity,” Eliot shot at the man, pushing past him and starting to walk. 

He heard Gaius sigh and the sound of boots on dry grass.

“You’re slowing us down, sir,” Gaius whispered, coming to stand by his shoulder. “I’ve said many things about you, but it’s ancient history now.”

Eliot cocked his head to consider the man. “You stood before the first centurion and tried to convince him you should be the one to lead this mission and I should stay back until extraction.”

Gaius slipped under Eliot’s arm and took most of his weight onto himself. Eliot grunted his disapproval, but didn’t do anything to stop him. Gaius was right; he was slowing them down.

“I just thought that it wasn’t worth losing you over this idiocy,” Gaius’s words were soft, but Eliot heard the sincerity in them.

Eliot cast another glance at Gaius. They hadn’t had the best start. Gaius didn’t like the nobility on principle. From what Eliot heard, the man had every right to dislike the nobility. His parents had been arrested on some bogus charges when his mother dared to report sexual harassment by her boss —a second rank nobleman. Gaius and his brother had been lost in the system after that. So, it came as little surprise that Gaius had disapproved of Eliot taking over the Primi. Many had been less than pleased. Some had wondered if Eliot’s name had paid a role in his naming. The head of the Primi was earmarked for centurion position. 

 Gaius had been one of the skeptics, but he was too good of a soldier to let his personal feelings interfere with their job. As Eliot’s second he’d done everything in his power to support his new commander. Eliot begrudgingly admitted that he’d learned a lot from the man.

“Eliot,” Gaius spoke once more, his voice still soft, just for Eliot’s ears. “I was wrong about you. I’ve told you that already,” Gaius admitted easily as they made their way through the dense vegetation of the few remaining forests in Shirak. 

Once the region had been covered in lush greenery and dense forests. Now whatever survived was being cut down by the population for fuel to heat their homes or to trade for food. The path was downhill now, and his injured leg screamed in protest. Octavius was at his other shoulder and Eliot was nearly hauled off the ground by the two men at either side supporting his weight. He was useless to the men. Gaius’s opinion of him had hardly ever been truer.

“I’m the idiot who managed to get injured on a rope landing. This is hardly the moment to reconsider your opinion of me.” 

“No, you’re the idiot who drew fire onto yourself so the rest of us could get out alive. You’re the idiot who beat his chest that he was heir to the Calatis family, knowing full well what that meant to the Kalmacian minds.” Gaius talked in an even tone; nothing indicated he was carrying the added weight of another man and his gear.

It’s been nearly two months since he and Gaius had been captured and managed to escape. Eliot knew Gaius had warmed toward him after that. To Gaius, Eliot’s readiness to sacrifice himself for the others meant he was worthy. To Eliot it had been the obvious choice for allowing them to be ambushed. They disagreed even on that.

“And you’re the idiot who could have gotten away, but stayed behind to try and rescue my sorry ass.”

“Really?” Gaius stopped abruptly, halting Eliot’s and Octavius’s progress. “Are we seriously doing this? In the middle of the freaking forest, with the chance of a Kalmacian patrol detecting us, we’re starting a pointless conversation. Should we hold hands and sing as well?”

The men sniggered behind him and Eliot didn’t stop his own snort.

“I’m blaming the damn third rate action movies they keep showing back on base,” Gaius grumbled, lifting Eliot’s weight once more.

“You’re the one who decided to stop and have a princess rant in the middle of forest,” Eliot shot back.

“We really need to move.” Crius said, his soft laugh cut short. He took the rifle off his shoulder and listened carefully. 

They all focused on the woods around them, the easy banter of a moment ago forgotten.

“It might be locals,” Paschalis whispered, his rifle still held close, ready for use. “They usually prefer the pre-dawn hours to collect wood, less chance of stumbling on a patrol.” Paschalis had been transferred to the Primi six weeks earlier for his language skills and cultural knowledge. 

“We’re not sticking around to find out. Move,” Eliot ordered. 

He looked at the sky. There was no hint of the rising sun, but Eliot knew that the line of horizon would soon be tinted with the bloody colors of dawn. He pushed through the pain and increased the speed of his hobbling. His men followed; they needed to disappear into the teaming shanty towns that encircled the capital of Shirak and pressed the edge of the forest before dawn.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliot Sanders finds a young man on the streets of Shirak.

**Tamor’s Children**

**Chapter 5**

 

 

 

 

 

Eliot switched off the car engine and slipped into the narrow, twisted net of streets in the old town of Siri, the capital of Shirak. He was alone. Gaius was meeting their local contact, and the rest of the team was backing him up. Eliot had ventured into the streets of Siri to pre-trace their route of escape after their mission.

The streets were empty as usual. People tried to stay out of the streets and away from the military and paramilitary groups that were the real masters of the city. Eliot had been to Shirak enough times, but the misery around him still managed to get to him.

Before joining the Unbreakables, Eliot had rarely been exposed to the life of the less fortunate. The trademark of his childhood had been carefree abundance and luxury. Understandably, his first deployment to Shirak had been a complete shock. Even by the standard of the poorest in the Alliance, Shirak was desolate.

Eliot still remembered his first visit to Siri. He remembered walking through the city and the street children scurrying out of his way, hiding in the shells of buildings and disappearing into the tunnels of what had been the municipal sewage system. For weeks he couldn’t get the children’s eyes out of his head, old and wise and terrified eyes that looked so wrong on tiny faces with soft features. The physical destruction of the country was only surface damage that could be peeled away like a bad spot in an apple. No, the real damage was the complete desperation that had claimed mastery over these people’s lives. Eliot had pretended not to notice. He’d walked with his comrades, watching their grim and expressionless faces, and he’d kept his face just as blank.

He’d lain awake the first night, chasing away the bits and images of the city’s streets. It was then that he’d understood he’d seen the ugliest of the faces of war. It wasn’t the battlefield where death’s fire and the stench of its breath followed incessantly. Even there hope managed to survive: the hope of the fire stopping, the hope of staying alive, the hope of seeing loved ones again. The worst was the vacuum of hope that war left behind once it infected a territory and spread into it like cancerous cells. At times, Eliot felt that razing Shirak from the face of earth would be a mercy to these people.

Eliot took a new turn onto another narrow street that looked identical to the one he’d just passed. They all looked the same with flapping siding and crumbling bricks. The smell of mold, mingled with the heavy stench of rotting garbage and open sewage. Even three years into his service and more deployments to Shirak than he was willing to count, the state of the country weighed heavily on Eliot’s soul if he allowed his mind to wander. He pushed those thoughts back and concentrated on his current job.

Taking another turn, Eliot stopped abruptly. A small body was curled up on its side on the ground, partially covered by a cardboard box and remnants of blue plastic sheeting, as if it was just one more piece of trash thrown onto the streets. Blood was everywhere, staining the dirty ground and mingling with the stagnant water that filled the potholed remnants of the street. It was hardly the first time Eliot had seen a body on the streets of Shirak. Death was everywhere. People had long stopped mourning their kin in death.

Eliot had no idea what made him approach the twisted body. It was like an invisible hand directed his steps. It was a young teen, his body badly beaten and bruised with multiple cuts, some oozing blood, others older and scabbed over marring his skin. The worst of the blood pooled and flowed from where the boy pressed his hands against his abdomen. Eliot had seen enough wounds to know that the contamination and blood loss from a jumble of shrapnel and intestines were almost always fatal. The boy was dead already. Yet for some reason Eliot couldn’t walk away. He bent forward and examined the boy more closely.

Eliot nearly jumped back at the tiny whimper that escaped the ashen lips. The boy’s eyes opened to a fierce and desperate blue. Like lightening, the need to possess and protect cut through Eliot, unsteadying him. The boy should have been dead. He soon would be dead. On a battlefield Eliot would have put a bullet between his eyes as an act of mercy. But his mind refused to be rational; he was going to save this boy.

Without artillery and bullets flying overhead, Eliot decided he could allow a shred of irrational hope and humanity. He gathered the boy in his arms and rushed him to the car. He was light and thin, maybe only one hundred pounds. The rational part of his brain kept telling him the boy wouldn’t survive the trip to the hospital, and even if he did, the poorly equipped Siri hospitals weren’t going to be able to save him.

A soft moan filled with pain slipped from the boy’s lips as Eliot placed him in the passenger seat of the car. The boy’s eyes opened once again to look at Eliot.

“Don’t you dare die now, you hear me?” Eliot demanded, pushing the matted hair off the boy’s pale, almost grey forehead.

The boy gave a small nod, something flashing in blue eyes that fought to stay open, something that spoke of strength and resilience. The life was bleeding out of him, yet there was a determination behind the pain in those eyes. 

The road to the hospital took an eternity. The hospital was a tangle of rubble and poorly patched construction. The sign that had once marked emergency had long ago been vandalized for its scraps of building material and now a cardboard sign pointed to a dilapidated side building with only a hole where there had once been glass doors.

Eliot rushed the boy into the reception area, almost stumbling over a white-faced child who clutched a dirty rag of a doll against her chest. Wounded and sick were everywhere, spilling out of exam rooms and treatment rooms into the filthy corridor. Eliot waded through the crowd, searching for someone who could help.

“We don’t have any more places.” A woman with exhausted eyes and dark stringy hair looked up from where she was draping a sheet over another victim.

“He won’t make it through another trip.” Even assuming there was another hospital anywhere in a ten mile radius, the boy was already nearly dead. He wouldn’t survive another half an hour wandering the streets.

“And what do you want me to do? We can’t help. We’re already full,” she said, turning away.

Eliot was ready to snarl his indignation. No one dared ignore him. He was Eliot Sanders of the house of Calatis. Back in the Alliance his mere presence ensured that the entire management team ran down to greet him and to accommodate his needs. She was nothing, a nobody. The words were on the tip of Eliot’s tongue, but the young man in his arms was growing heavier and stiller. Eliot’s heart gave a panicked tug. Unwilling to accept defeat or throw away the one last chance of saving the boy, he silenced the angry words.

Eliot shifted the boy to support his weight with one arm and reached for the money he had in his pocket. It wasn’t his money. It was destined for their local contacts and as a bribe for the officials should they need it. Right now it was the difference between the boy having a fighting chance and dying without it. Reason dictated the boy was dead either way, but Eliot wasn’t obeying reason.

“Here.” Eliot shoved the handful of colorful bills at her. “I’m sure this can make you more creative about what you can do for me.”

Her eyes turned into perfect circles, maybe from fear, maybe from greed, before she grabbed the cash. It wasn’t unheard of for the local warlords to summarily execute doctors who didn’t treat their wounded first. The only people with that much free cash were warlords and killers.

“Wait here,” she said and ran down the hall.

Mere seconds later she re-appeared with a tall, pale looking woman marching behind her. Her willowy looks were made more slender, nearly ghostly in appearance, by her long, white doctor’s coat.

“Get him inside,” she ordered as soon as she spotted Eliot.

Eliot hesitated for a second, before putting the boy down, as he looked at the makeshift table of sawhorses and scraps of wood covered by a filthy sheet.

“Get the surgery ready, we’re starting immediately,” the doctor barked at the nurse, pressing carefully on the wound. “Do you know his blood type? What about you?” she went on without waiting for a reply to her first question.

“I don’t know his. I’m O negative, a universal donor,” he added unnecessarily.

“Good,” she said in the same rapid-fire manner. “You look like a healthy enough specimen. You can spare some blood. Go give some.”

Eliot gave a slow nod, his hand stroking the grime-matted hair. Before leaving he took out several more bills and handed them to the doctor. She pushed them back.

“He’s not likely to live. I’m not going to take your money.”

Eliot shook his head. “Take it, do whatever you want with it. Just do your best to save him.”

She considered him for a second before taking the money. “He’s not going to make it. Don’t get your hopes up. Hope doesn’t inhabit this country anymore,” her voice was strained and tired.  

Two more nurses came at that moment and rushed the boy to the surgery, the doctor walking after them.

Eliot had every intention of leaving after he’d donated blood. He’d done his good deed for the day. There was no reason for him to stay. Yet, he found himself pacing the hallways with their peeling paint, shuttered windows and constant flow of sick and injured.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been waiting when he realized he needed to contact his men. A sickening sense of shame and anger burst in his skull. He had a mission, he had men to take care of, and he’d abandoned his duties without a second thought. He slipped out of the hospital and punched the numbers into his cell to connect with his men.

“Sir,” Gaius managed to sound both relieved and angry. “Glad to hear your voice.”

Eliot felt like a complete idiot. There was no excuse for his actions and the growing coldness in Gaius’s voice told him that unless he’d just been resurrected from the dead nothing was a good enough reason to miss a check-in. This was unworthy and unacceptable behavior, and he would hear from the first centurion about it.

“Report.” Eliot took the easy exit and hid behind the chain of command.

“Nothing to report, sir. No contact.” Gaius’s voice became flat and neutral as he went on with his report. “The rumor is our contact is dead. We’re on our own, it seems, and stuck here until we can figure out how to make this happen.” The last part was said in a softer voice that betrayed his second’s exhaustion and strain. Eliot had contributed to that strain. His little detour had caused his men more uncertainty.

Eliot cursed his own stupidity. “I’ll be there soon.” He forced the words out, his sense of duty tamping back the incessant demand to stay with the boy.

It was stupid. Eliot told himself as he walked to his car. The boy was just another casualty of war. Eliot had seen death so many times in the past three years that it felt like part of him now. This was just another boy, he repeated to himself like a mantra; only he didn’t believe the words. He wanted to stay.

The blotch of blood on the passenger seat was dark, ugly, and still wet. Eliot touched it, feeling the stickiness of drying blood. Irrationally, he wanted to go back inside. He wanted to look once more at the pale boy with tubes snaking from his arms that lay in the crowded corridor. He wanted to see that thin chest continue to rise and fall with each breath. Eliot shook his head and turned the key. He had a mission to complete. It was time to put silly thoughts out of his head. The boy was inconsequential. His fate was his own now. Eliot had other concerns.

 

 


	6. Tamor's Children

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys find their destiny.

**Tamor’s Children**

**Chapter 6**

 

 

 

Eliot swore to himself that he wouldn’t go back, but he did. The next day before the sun rose he was at the hospital with his heart racing as he searched the corridors and crowded rooms for the boy. He couldn’t explain the instant relief that flooded through his body when the harried nurse from the day before told him the young man was still alive, in critical condition, but still clinging to life.

A couple more bills from his pocket and an orderly in a filthy smock showed him to the boy’s room, a crowded ward, which he shared with a dozen others. Still ashen-faced, the boy opened his eyes and looked at Eliot with a deep scowl marring his young face. Eliot couldn’t help but push the dark hair away from his cold forehead and kiss his brow. The boy was small, fragile even. Yet he clung to life and clawed his way away from death with a resolve worthy of admiration.

Eliot continued to visit the boy. Ronan, he found out when the boy managed to say his name through parched, cracked lips. He could guess at the boy’s age and past life, but Ronan said little. He lay in his bed and watched his benefactor through brilliantly blue eyes. Eliot didn’t understand, but he knew the boy was coming with him. He wasn’t leaving Ronan here in this overcrowded, wreck of a hospital.

Three days later, Ronan grimaced as he bent down to pull shoes onto his feet. He looked better, stronger, no more the waif-like creature he’d been when he was fresh out of surgery. He was still pale, but Eliot wasn’t sure whether his coloring was his natural complexion. The Shiraki people were paler than Eliot’s own.

“You didn’t have to look away when I was dressing and act all flustered,” Ronan said as he finished tying his laces. He gave Eliot a sullen look.

“I wasn’t flustered.”

 “Yeah, sure. And you weren’t ogling me either,” he mumbled under his breath, making Eliot angry at his impertinence. “Let’s go.” He walked to Eliot, his jaw clenched and cheeks paling further in a clear sign of pain. 

“Go where?” Eliot’s voice was soft now, as if he were talking to a small child, not the usual half-snarl that left his mouth.

“There’s a place not far from here; the owner lets it by the hour,” Ronan looked somewhere behind Eliot’s shoulder.

“What are you telling me, boy?” Eliot demanded, not hiding his anger.

“There’s nothing else I can give you. Don’t tell me when you picked me up from the trash you thought I was a lost prince and could reward you handsomely once I was better.”

It took Eliot all his will power not to slap the boy for the impertinent tone and the filth he was suggesting.

“You silly boy, look at me!” Eliot walked closer to Ronan, towering over the boy. “Really look at me! There are not many who can even compare to the wealth and power I come from. Do you think I’d bed trash like you?”

He hated the words that came out of his mouth, but it was too late. He’d already uttered them, and he was too angry to do anything about it now.

“Fuck you!” Ronan shouted back. “You think you’re the first noble that salivated over my ass? Yeah!” Ronan shouted, his blue eyes bursting with anger. “I’m not an idiot. I’ve seen enough of your kind to know you’re nobility. For your information, you’re nothing special. You, the noble kind, are just like any other man, just more perverted. You like playing power games a bit too much.”

“Careful, boy.” Eliot grabbed Ronan by his collar, the rage in him turning to ice. “I will not tolerate you speaking to me like that.”

Ronan’s blue eyes kept staring at him with absolute fury, but there was no trace of fear. None. Eliot towered over Ronan, bigger and stronger and with the trained savagery of an Unbreakable, yet the boy was unafraid. Ronan stared up at Eliot, his thin frame braced for a beating, his hands balled into fists. Swaying with weakness, the boy still resisted.

“Kid,” Eliot muttered, reaching out and smoothing Ronan’s hair. “You’re too weak for this.” 

“Are you going to fuck me or not? You can have my ass, but I’m not doing any daddy shit.” 

“Not,” Eliot said the word as neutrally as he could muster, his insides churning at the front row seat of the grotesque show of Shiraki life.

He should walk away.  He’d done more than enough for the boy. But he couldn’t comprehend letting Ronan go, letting him go back to the dirty streets and selling his body for scraps. This boy was a warrior, a brother in arms. It wasn’t lust. The boy was too young, but it wasn’t paternal either. He only knew he wanted the boy, and he was going to have the boy.

 “The doctor says you still need to rest and have decent and regular meals.” 

Ronan just snorted, his eyes everywhere but on Eliot.

“I take it that you have no such place to go.” The look the boy flashed at him warned Eliot to expect more smart mouth replies. “Think carefully, boy, about how you answer me.”

Ronan shoved his hands into his pockets and looked away. He shook his head, black hair cascading over his pale forehead.

“Come,” Eliot ordered. “You’ll stay with us for now, then we’ll see.”

He had no plan, no idea what he was going to do with a Shiraki orphan. But the boy couldn’t go back to the streets. He couldn’t abandon the boy any more than he could abandon a fellow Unbreakable on the battlefield.

“Us?” Ronan asked, eyes darting toward Eliot.

“My men and me,” Eliot added.

The look and the nod Ronan gave made it clear the boy thought he was being invited along as entertainment for Eliot’s men. He nearly snapped at Ronan for daring to think so low of him, but he suppressed his anger. That was all the boy knew, a filthy fuck and a few coins left on the table.    

“Come.” Eliot walked down the crowded corridor, not looking at the wounded and sick huddled on the floor and against the walls. Ronan could follow him, or he could stay here in this squalor and die in this paradise of a country. Only he knew he was lying to himself. The boy was his. He’d drag him by his scruff if he didn’t hear the click of shoes on the cracked and yellowed linoleum floor. 

“Here.” Eliot jerked opened the door on the battered sedan. 

Ronan slid inside and huddled against the door. 

“Fuck it.” Eliot slammed the door and walked to the driver’s side. Ungrateful little bastard. He slammed the car into gear, and they rattled and banged out of the hospital parking lot. He spun the wheel left and headed down the road toward the northern outskirts of the city and their safe house. 

Eliot shouldn’t care. He’d already been the heroic savior, but he kept glancing over at Ronan in the passenger seat. He didn’t owe the kid anything, yet he couldn’t shake the damn feeling.

 “I’m sorry for what I said to you.” Eliot kept his eyes on the road, trying to not look at Ronan, but he could see the boy turning his head to look at him.

“Yeah,” Ronan muttered, running his thumb down the seam of his pants.

“I shouldn’t have said those words to you. It was wrong of me,” Eliot recited, glancing over at Ronan, watching his reaction. He wasn’t good at apologies. A nobleman, especially one of his rank wasn’t expected to apologize. Eliot had to learn that skill along with everything else in the Unbreakables.

Ronan looked at him like he had grown a second head. His big, blue eyes became even bigger, swallowing his thin face nearly entirely.

“I don’t understand you,” he murmured. “What do you want from me? It’s not like I have anything you could want.”

“I don’t want anything from you,” Eliot tried to sound convincing; yet it came out a snap. 

“Then why do all this?” The boy’s voice broke into a full plea. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing. I know you’re military. I also can tell you’re Alliance—First Families—but I can’t figure out what you’re doing in Shirak or chasing after me.” Ronan’s voice became more desperate with each word.

Eliot turned abruptly to look at the boy, the car swerving to the edge of the road. “How did you know all that?”

Ronan huffed. “Just because I have blue eye doesn’t mean I’m stupid. Try to survive on the streets if you can’t tell those things. Your bearing is military. I’ve seen it enough times to recognize it even in the dark. The way you talk, behave and even look is rich and powerful—nobility. You told me not many equal you in power; that’s First Families. Just because I have blue eye doesn’t mean I’m an idiot,” Ronan repeated, clearly used to people assuming just that. Blue eyes were a sign of a lesser being in the eyes of Kalmacians and often Shirakis as well. 

“No, you’re not an idiot and I wouldn’t presume that because of the color of your eyes. Your propensity and aptitude for pissing people off, though, is another matter.”

Ronan scowled at him, before a shadow passed over his face and he dropped his eyes. “Let me go please?”

“Go where, Ronan? You’re hurt and have no place to go.” Eliot said, annoyed once more by the kid’s demands. He should be begging Eliot to stick around, not the other way.

“Somewhere I won’t be found.” Ronan looked through the window, not meeting Eliot’s eyes. “Someplace where I can lick my wounds in peace. I can’t even defend myself now.” Exhaustion and for the first time helplessness tinged Ronan’s voice.

“I can keep you safe. You might not believe me now, but I promise no harm will come to you.”

Ronan closed his eyes, letting his head fall back against the seat. “I don’t need you,” he said, his eyes snapping open, as he turned to face Eliot. “I don’t need saved. For whatever reason you chose to pick me as your little project. I don’t need that. I can take care of myself.”

“Yes, I saw the great job you did!” Eliot looked at the boy pointedly, angry and losing his patience with Ronan’s reluctance to follow his lead. 

“I’d like to see you do better. It’s not like I have wealth and servants following my ass.” Ronan’s jaw was set in a stubborn clench, and he looked at Eliot, his eyes full of challenge.

“You’re staying put, end of discussion,” Eliot announced, stomping on the gas. 

Ronan said nothing, leaning farther into the door.

At their temporary safe house, Eliot pulled Ronan out of the car when the kid stubbornly refused to move.

“Welcome back, Lieutenant,” Octavius called out, looking up from a map he was studying alongside Crius and Gaius, who also nodded their greetings at Eliot.

Crius let out a soft whistle and a grin. “Is that the rescue mission, sir? That looks like fun,” Crius said with his usual good humor.

“Fuck you!” Ronan shouted, delivering a well-aimed kick to Eliot’s shin. “I almost believed you. You lied to me, you ass. If you think I’m going to lie down and be an obedient little fuck toy for your serfs, you’ve got another thought coming.”

Eliot grabbed Ronan by his nape and shook the boy, but it made no impression. The boy went wild in his arms. He cried out in pain as he tried to punch Eliot, but the pain did nothing to stop the kid from trying again.

“Lovely,” Gaius said. “I’m trying to decide which I find more charming, being automatically classified as his majesty’s lowly servant or a rapist.”

Eliot threw Gaius a dirty look, letting him know the man’s dry humor was misplaced right now, and Ronan used that second of distraction to drive his elbow into Eliot’s stomach.

“Enough,” Eliot roared in a sudden blinding rage, the heat of his own temper consuming him.

Ronan let out a strange sound and collapsed to his knees, his head pressed to Eliot’s boots in abject misery. The rage dissipated as suddenly as it had come, and Eliot was left watching the boy at his feet, as if the cooling, soothing kiss of an ocean licked at his ankles. He basked in the feeling, strength and surrender tempering his anger. Shaking off the feeling, he pulled Ronan to his feet. Ronan looked shaken, his face pale, eyes misted with tears and confusion.

“What did you do to me?” There was a look in the boy’s eyes that nearly made Eliot roar with a sudden surge of power. He couldn’t name it, but the expression of awe on Ronan’s face only strengthened the flame within Eliot. It was as if he was being given the universe and its infinite power and majesty.

“I didn’t do anything,” Eliot pushed the boy forward.

“That was definitely something,” Crius said.

Eliot turned to look at the man, his eyes falling on the other men as they pretended to be busy with equipment. They were studying him as if they’d never met him before.  

Eliot marched Ronan into the back bedroom with a last glare at his men.

“There.” He pointed at his own sleeping bag. “Get in there and get some sleep.“  

Ronan scrambled to obey, getting into the sleeping bag and gazing at Eliot with liquid blue eyes.

 Eliot could have sworn he touched the boy’s soul, as if for a fraction of a second there was no separate Eliot or Ronan, but they were one. The feeling was so intense and foreign that Eliot pushed it away in near panic.

“Sleep,” he repeated, his voice softer. Ronan closed his eyes and seconds later was asleep, put to sleep by Eliot’s will alone.

Once Ronan’s eyes closed and released Eliot from their captivity, Eliot felt a gaze upon his back. Gaius was leaning against the crooked doorframe that at the best of the times allowed the door to half close. His eyes were unreadable, as if he were appraising a foreigner, trying to determine whether he was a friend or a foe.

“That was impressive.” 

“What do you want, Gaius?” Eliot knew he sounded short, but he was on a rollercoaster he couldn’t even remember ever getting on. He was tired and all he wanted was to have some peace and time alone to figure things out. “Are you going to tell me we have a mission and I need to be on it? Because I know that!”

Gaius shook his head. “I already told you that and that was when you disappeared without any of us knowing where you were. That was wrong. Right now there isn’t anything any of us can do. Maybe hope for some miracle because without our contact I really can’t see how we’re going to find out the target’s schedule.”

“So?” Eliot scowled at the man.

“So, I told you, it was impressive. I don’t think I have any reference for what we saw.”

“The kid has been raped and beaten his entire life. It’s all he knows. I was angry; he tried to mollify me the only way he knew how.” Eliot held Gaius’s eyes as he spoke, not liking the amused look in the man’s eyes.

“Do you even believe that yourself? Because from my brief encounter with the boy, mollifying anyone didn’t seem to be in his repertoire. In fact I was wondering how the little brat survived that long on the streets with such a mouth on him.”

“Don’t!” 

“Protective.” 

“So what?”

“Nothing,” Gaius shrugged. “Don’t feel bad about the way you feel for the young man.”

“I don’t feel any way about him. I just wanted him safe. I know it’s stupid. We see death all the time. I should have just left him—”

“That’s what I meant,” Gaius interrupted. “Don’t beat yourself up. We all, at some point get tired of seeing death. Sometimes we need to save that one person or we will stop being human, Lieutenant.” His voice was soft, soothing. “I know that. I’ve been there. I’ve done this far longer than you, sir. There’s no shame in your humanity.”

Eliot knew he averted his eyes. He didn’t want to see the pity on Gaius’s face. He looked at the sleeping boy, strange feelings warring inside him.

“You like him.” 

Eliot could hear the smile in Gaius’s voice. 

“I’m not a freaking idiot who chases boys on the streets. He’s a kid. I don’t bed children.”

“You understood me wrong, sir.” Gaius’s voice was even and soft, no sign of temper. “I didn’t hint at anything, just that you like him. Maybe he’s the little brother you never had, or maybe something different, I don’t know and I don’t care. But I can see you like him, and I’m happy for it.”

Eliot looked at Gaius questioningly, and the man sighed.

“Eliot,” he said in a hushed voice, one of the rare times when the man used his name. Usually it meant he thought Eliot was being an obtuse idiot. “How long have you been in the Unbreakables?”

“Three years, why?”

“Three years and you haven’t really bonded with any of us.”

“I’m loyal to the Unbreakables,” Eliot had to hold himself back from grabbing Gaius by his throat, he was sick of hearing people doubt his loyalties.

“I don’t doubt that, sir,” Gaius hurried to appease him. “I know that. I’ve had a firsthand encounter with your loyalty. That’s not what I meant. But you don’t let any of us close to you.”

Eliot crossed his arms over his chest in what he knew was a defensive gesture. Gaius was right to a degree. Eliot was trying, but he was also mostly failing. Sometimes it felt like trying to learn a new language for which he had no dictionary. Casual emotional exchange had not been in his background. 

“At the beginning I thought you were just a stuck up noble brat who thought himself too good to be around the likes of us,” Gaius went on.

“And now?” Eliot looked at the man before him.

“Now I think you’re all that, but that’s not the reason you’re not bonding with us because I now know you want to be one of us. I think you just don’t know how to bond with us.” Gaius’s eyes were on Eliot, steady, unwavering.

“Is there a psychology degree in your background? Because otherwise I don’t want to waste my time.”

Gaius shook his head and smiled. “See? That’s what I meant.” His smile broadened, despite the fact that Eliot had just insulted him. “The boy will be good for you. He’ll show you how to be human instead of an indoctrinated statue.”

Eliot scowled at Gaius, who let out a soft laugh.

“Get some sleep, Lieutenant. I know you’ve been up all night trying to figure out a way to get this idiotic mission done and us out of here. You can’t save the world. Enjoy the one thing you saved.”

Eliot shook his head, getting ready to protest.

“We can go an hour without supervision, sir.”

“All right,” Eliot agreed, feeling his limbs heavy with the promise of sleep.

 “Rest, sir.”

Eliot nodded to Gaius’s back. Eliot stood in the middle of the room for a long while after the man left, his thoughts refusing to fall into any order.   

#

“Master,” Eliot awoke to the whispered words.

He opened his eyes to Ronan’s clever ones studying him. Eliot blinked. His eyes meeting the deep blue abyss that threatened to snatch his soul.

“I’m not master.” His words felt like a betrayal even to his own ears. Of course he wasn’t master. Masters were a thing of past; no human should own another. That was what made them different from Kalmacia. Slavery flourished in Kalmacia with the elite of the country unapologetic about the practice. Eliot was no master. He fought the Kalmacian atrocities, but Ronan had called him master, and his soul sang with the word.

“You are,” Ronan said in a sure voice. “Not like the others who forced the word out of my mouth. Yours is real mastery.”

“Ronan,” Eliot tried to reprimand the boy, but stopped himself. “Get up. We’ll eat.” Eliot needed to get back to trying to find a way to complete the mission. The Unbreakables didn’t fail and didn’t give up.

They crawled out from the inviting warmth of the bed. Eliot felt Ronan’s eyes still on him as he was putting on his shoes.

“I can help you.”

Eliot turned around to look at Ronan, questioning the boy with his eyes.

“You’re Unbreakables, aren’t you?” Ronan asked, his eyes never leaving Eliot. “You’re on a mission, and something went wrong. Maybe I can help.”

Eliot knew his face was asking the question that didn’t leave his lips.

“It’s not that hard to figure out.” Ronan didn’t wait for Eliot to ask the question. “I’ve been around soldiers. You’re elite forces, and you speak Unified perfectly, but most importantly you aren’t asses. Everyone in Shirak knows the blue berets. You’re out of uniform which means it’s a covert operation, and the fact that you’re stuck here means something has gone wrong.” Ronan shook his head once, his long, dark hair flopping over his eyes only to be pushed back sharply. “So, do you need my help?” Ronan looked down and scuffed his new shoes on the worn floor. “Kalmacian officers like boys. I know them.”

Eliot said nothing. He studied the boy for a second and then motioned for Ronan to follow him.

Paschalis was studying something on his laptop. Eliot looked at the screen. Paschalis was going through the pictures of the known entourage of Septimus Cratius, the Axis brigadier general and their target. Eliot brought Ronan to his side and stuck his finger in the direction of the screen.

“Do you know anyone?”

“Which one do you need,” Ronan asked, studying the pictures.

“Do you know anyone on that list?” Eliot repeated, not willing to divulge too much information. He was conscious of the eyes of his men on him, but he was willing to take the risk.

“I’ve seen him a couple of times,” Ronan pointed at one of the men. “And him.” He scrolled down and pointed at another man. “But him. I can get you to him. The other two I only have a vague idea where you might be able to find them.”

“So you know that one?” Paschalis asked. Eliot came closer. It was the adjunct of the General, Captain Leander.

“Oh, I know him, all right,” Ronan said with a disgusted smirk. “I know the person who can bring him straight to us.”

Eliot looked at Ronan, the question unsaid.

“Let’s just say he has a fondness for me.” Ronan turned away, hiding his expression.

Eliot gave a short nod to indicate his understanding.

“But one thing, though,” Ronan said, looking Eliot straight in the eyes. “Once you get whatever information you need from him, he’s mine.”

“And what do you want with him?” Gaius asked, not hiding his amusement.

“To kill him,” Ronan snarled with a fierceness that made Eliot’s heart soar with pride.

“Ronan,” Eliot started at the same time as Gaius spoke.

“Kid, you don’t want to go down that road.”

“I’m not a kid.” Ronan’s eyes spilled fire at Gaius before turning to look at Eliot, his expression changing. “Please, allow me to have him. I’ll follow you to the end of the world. I’ll do whatever you want of me, but allow me my revenge.”

“Walk with me, Ronan,” Eliot murmured, overwhelmed by the intensity of Ronan’s eyes. 

Ronan walked softly. There was almost no sound on the well-trod dirt path when the boy followed him.

“Tell me what happened to you.” Eliot said in a near whisper when they crossed the small yard and entered the narrow alley that had once been the path to the house’s garage, now a roofless skeleton.

The sulking look was back on Ronan’s face, but it stayed there only for a second before it melted away and the boy looked down. “Lots of things happened. You’d be bored.”

“I doubt that.” Eliot studied the boy. “But you know what I meant. Who left you there to die? Is it the person you recognized in the photo?”

Ronan shook his head. “No, he’s just one of his friends. But I’m going to find them all, and I’m going to find him.” The lasts words were pure hatred. The boy’s words held a real promise to them. They sounded so convincing that Eliot believed this boy, an orphan with no means to even live until the next day, would make his words come true. 

“Tell me what I want to know,” Eliot ordered and Ronan’s eyes hit the floor once again.

“I don’t want revenge for what was done to me.”

“Who, then?”

“Adrian,” Ronan breathed the name out as if it were hurting him. “He was my best friend, my only friend, and they killed him.”

The boy’s body shook with small tremors. Eliot forced himself not to pull the boy into his arms. Eliot knew he probably should have come up with words of comfort, but he had none, so he stood silently as the boy fought to keep the worst of his emotions at bay.

“Tell me about Adrian,” Eliot prodded, once Ronan was calmer.

“I knew him forever.” Ronan’s voice was hushed and unsure. “We were in the same orphanage, and he was always there, since the very first day. He was small and quiet, always the one others picked on. I promised that I’d always protect him.” The boy’s voice broke off, the wave of emotions choking him.

Eliot waited, watchful and silent, still unable to offer the platitudes of care and comfort.

“When we were about nine or ten; I decided to run away. There was nothing but pain for us in that place, and I took Adrian with me. He was scared; he didn’t want to go. He said we had a roof and food. For him, even if we were constantly being beaten and half-starved, it was better than the unknown of the streets. But I dragged him after me. I promised I would make a better life for us. I had to avoid the people that our so-called tutors brought to the orphanage. More and more were looking at me in a way that scared me, touching me in ways that made me want to crawl out of my skin. I knew we needed to get out of there, and I forced Adrian to follow me because I was too selfish and too scared to be on my own.”

“You wanted your friend safe.” 

Ronan shook his head. “Adrian was a scrawny shrimp. No one looked at him twice. He would have been fine there, at least for another couple of years.”

“You don’t know that, Ronan. You knew you were his only defender; you couldn’t walk out on him.”

“Defender,” Ronan grimaced. “I turned him into a street rat, hiding in bombed out buildings, stealing what we could, selling ourselves for scraps.” His voice trailed off, and he swallowed several times. “Still, maybe it was better than life in the orphanage. At least we could choose some of the time,” the boy mused aloud. “We learned to avoid the dangerous types, to run and to hide,” he resumed his tale, voice calmer now, almost detached. “Sometimes we’d make it; sometimes we wouldn’t, but such was the life on the streets. We accepted it. But there are things you can’t hide forever from. Especially if you’re stupid.”

Ronan took a deep breath, preparing himself.

“I got stupid. The soldiers from both Kalmacia and the Alliance were the ones that paid the best and I looked for them. That’s how he found me. An officer in the Kalmacian army, a sadistic bastard, who tortured me for hours. In the end he threw me a handsome sum and said that it was for my eyes and that he would be back.”

Ronan stopped once more and shook his head, as if to clear it from haunting thoughts or images.

“I knew the man was trouble, but the money was too good. When the local pimp told me a young Kalmacian officer with a scar on his right cheek was looking for me, I went to him again.”

Ronan was silent once more, his pale face shadowed by deep turmoil.

“After that time, I knew I’d been stupid, but it was too late. He wouldn’t let me be.” The boy’s voice wavered, filling with a promise of tears.

“I had no place to hide. He enjoyed the cat and mouse game of tracking me down and dragging me back to his little play place he’d set up,” Ronan went on with his story, voice under control once again, sounding hollow and disconnected, eyes still glued to a spot on the ground. 

“He promised he’d break me. I was too dumb to shut my mouth. I took it as a challenge.” Ronan’s voice trailed off once more. “When the raping and beating didn’t break me, he found Adrian.” The boy choked and fell silent. He turned his head and stared into the horizon, unwilling to continue. “Then you found me. He didn’t need a broken toy.” 

“Ronan, you can’t blame yourself for your friend’s death.”

“Why not? Who else is there to blame?” 

“The bastard who killed him.”

“You wouldn’t blame a wolf for hunting its food. I knew what he was the very first day I met him, yet I went back. It wasn’t even all about the money. I was too cocky; I was so sure I could handle him when no one else could. I was the biggest and baddest.”

“Ronan, you were a kid trying to survive an impossible life. He was sadistic filth who took advantage of you.” Eliot felt anger rising within him. 

Ronan shook his head, but remained silent.

“So why do you want to kill this one?”

“He was there; he took great delight in tormenting both of us. I’m going to find every single one of their merry party.”

“You already said that,” Eliot prodded.

“You’ll see. I will.” 

“Ronan killing those men is not going to bring your friend back. It’s just going to do things to you—”

“Things?” Ronan interrupted, his eyes locking onto Eliot’s. “What can it do to me that hasn’t been done already? You think I have a soul left that is going to be damaged if I start killing? You’re delusional, Master.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“You are Master.” Ronan’s voice was tired, his eyes on the floor once more.

“Why do you call me that?”

Ronan shrugged. “Because that fucker made me say those words to him and he didn’t deserve to even be called a cockroach. You deserve them, Master.”

“A couple of hours ago you put me in that cockroach class,” Eliot said, letting a hint of a smile bleed into his voice.

Ronan gave another noncommittal shrug. “Now I know.”

They stood like that for several moments, Eliot studying Ronan, and the boy studying the dirt under his feet.

“I don’t want you doing it,” Eliot said, breaking the silence.

Ronan’s eyes shot up, betrayal shining in his gaze. “You’d deny me that?” He almost choked on the words.

Eliot jerked his head. “No, but I don’t like it.”

“Thank you.” The voice was soft and the boy slid down to his knees with ease, his head bowing down to touch Eliot’s boots.

Eliot knew he should have stopped Ronan. He knew he should have pulled the boy up immediately. Instead he stood there drinking from the fountain of strength that lay at his feet. He’d never felt so good. Ronan was his and his entire essence knew it. He felt the boy’s heartbeat like he felt his own. He was losing his mind. 

 

 


End file.
